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Russ Roberts in WSJ: Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There.

This is an awesome op ed from Friday’s WSJ. (See, I am physically capable of praising a George Mason economist.) Some excerpts: Today, President George W. Bush plays the role of Hoover, the so-called free market ideologue who is trying anything to avert disaster. He signs a $700 billion bill putting Treasury in charge of […]

Murphy Interview on the Mike Beitler Show

Mike Beitler interviewed me on Thursday [mp3]. We actually talked mostly about my book. (There might be a discreet ad to the left if you’re not sure which book I mean.) The main topics were rent control, minimum wage laws, and the Fed. It’s pretty basic stuff for you overachievers, but it might soothe you […]

Accounting Basics & the Financial Crisis

I’ve had a few conversations with “Pepe,” my man on Wall Street. It had been many years since my undergraduate class in accounting, and I just wanted to clarify a few things to make sure I really understood the typical press stories about the financial crisis. It occurred to me that some Free Advice readers […]

"How Did This Happen?"

I saw an ad for this website about the causes of the financial crisis at–ironically–my own blog. (True to my contract with Google, I didn’t click on my own ads, but rather just typed in the URL.) I hate to judge on something like this before all the facts are in, but I’m thinking I […]

Marketplace Video Explainers

Here are some pretty useful and quick explainers, provided by the Senior Editor of NPR’s Marketplace. (HT2MR) I only watched two of them, namely the one on short selling and the one on credit default swaps. The CDS one seemed pretty good to me. However, I should warn you that I think the guy didn’t […]

Lew Rockwell Interview With Naomi Wolf

I am not exaggerating, this is quite possibly the best interview I have ever heard in my life. (Just click on the link and then play it from within your browser.) During the show itself, Naomi Wolf comes to see why libertarians are so opposed to the IRS and the Department of Education. She (at […]

Paulson’s Plan Making Things Worse

So I argue in a Sacramento Union piece. A sample: When the House of Representatives failed to pass the original request for $700 billion from Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Sept. 29, the Standard & Poors 500 (S&P) fell about 8.8 percent. This supposedly proved how vital the rescue plan was for the health and […]

Nouriel Roubini Pics: Dr. Doom or Dr. Dionysus?

I will do a more serious post later, but first thing’s first: Let’s bump up the Free Advice traffic with some silly pictures! Here is Nouriel Roubini when he is discussing “stag-deflation”: And here’s Roubini when he is just kickin it at his Manhattan pad with some NYU grad students: BTW I learned of the […]